BULLET TRAIN: THE FACTS SHOULD KILL IT

The state Senate is expected to make a key vote in coming days on the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan to begin spending billions of dollars in state and federal funds on the first segment of a bullet-train system linking Northern and Southern California. Gov. Jerry Brown’s latest proposal calls for building a 130-mile link between Madera and Bakersfield in the Central Valley.

The project has been controversial since state voters in 2008 approved giving $9.95 billion in bond seed money to build a system then estimated to cost $43 billion.

As the cost estimate rose to $98 billion, the debate over the direction of the project built in intensity, This led the governor to force changes, including adoption of a new plan that cut the cost to $68 billion.

Since then, the narrative has settled into a tidy package: Brown says California has to be bold, but “critics” worry the project could prove a disaster.

But let’s just stick to facts, not the opinions of “critics.”

The project was sold to voters in 2008 with estimates of not just project cost but ridership and ticket prices that have since been abandoned as far too optimistic by the California High-Speed Rail Authority itself.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office, the most respected institution in state government, has repeatedly warned the project’s business plan doesn’t comply with the legal requirement that there be no taxpayer-supplied operating subsidies when the bullet train is up and running.

Of the project’s estimated $68 billion cost, less than $14 billion in funding (all from state and federal taxpayers) is in place.

No companies have shown interest in partnering with the state to fund and build the project – as has long been envisioned – unless they are given ridership or revenue guarantees to shield them from risk. Such guarantees, the LAO says, break state law.

Once again, these are facts, not the “opinions” of critics. Even in an era in which the state and federal governments were flush with money, we find it hard to believe that anyone who looked at these facts would conclude the Legislature should say full speed ahead.

But in an era in which education, the social safety net and many more important programs are taking major hits in Sacramento because of the revenue crisis, it’s unfathomable that the state would spend billions on a project with this many warning signs.

Brown often depicts criticism of the bullet train as driven by partisan motives, not a genuine fear that an immense boondoggle looms. So how does the California project look to the editorial board of The Washington Post, which can’t be accused of right-wing bias?

In a November editorial headlined “Crazy train,” the Post cited many of the facts we offered. Its conclusion:

“If the president and governor won’t slam on the brakes, then Congress or the California Legislature must find a way to prevent the spending. Somebody, please, stop this train.”

If legislators finally acknowledge the facts about the train project, that’s just what they will do.